When Donald Trump got shot on July 13, countless stand-ups took to social media to post bite-size jokes about the incident in hopes of going viral. Josh Johnson took a different tack: Two days later, he released a 45-minute set about the assassination attempt to YouTube, written and recorded the day it occurred; it currently has over 882,000 views. Had this video been a one-off anomaly, it might have seemed like an opportunistic ploy to capitalize on the attention-grabbing news. But posting stand-up sets like this at least once a week has become routine for Johnson, who, for over a year now, has been writing and recording bespoke 12- to 45-minute sets inspired by topical events big and small: Justin Timberlake’s arrest, the FBI raid on Diddy’s house, Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential election, and more.
For context on how much stand-up this is, Johnson has posted ten videos since the beginning of July, totaling over four hours of new material — each with over 440,000 views on YouTube. (His newest video, released just last night, already has over 225,000 views.) More impressive than the sheer volume, though, is the consistency. Considering how quickly Johnson turns these sets around, they are rarely underbaked. His joke and storytelling beats are fleshed out enough that he doesn’t need to flounder in search of punch lines, and he’s frequently able to draw connections to bigger thematic ideas.
That level of ambition can be at least partly thanks to the experience he’s gained from his day job. Johnson has worked at the The Daily Show for seven years, where he’s grown accustomed to workshopping jokes about news headlines for hours each day. In March, the show promoted him from writer to on-camera correspondent, and between the visibility of his new high-profile gig and YouTube-channel following, Johnson has entered a new phase of his career. Both projects come with a lot of pressure, particularly during a fraught election year, but Johnson is more focused on the connections he creates with his audience. “What’s happening now is something that, even with more mainstream and commercial success, I could not have imagined,” he says. “Real and proper community with the people I create for.”
What was the impetus for starting to post these long, topical sets on YouTube?
I’ve always been writing a lot, ever since I started. When I lived in Chicago — which is where I started doing comedy — open mics were four or five minutes, and in my head, it just made more sense to try a different set every time. It wasn’t always productive, because I was still learning to do stand-up, and I wasn’t necessarily getting the repetition of a concentrated four- or five-minute set, but I still felt like I was exercising a different muscle, which was generating a large amount of general output.
Once I know something works as a verifiable fact 99 times out of 100, unless I’m preparing for a special taping, it doesn’t make sense to me to keep doing it. When I first started writing as much as I’m writing now, I didn’t even really know YouTube was an option, because the Andrew Schulzes of the world hadn’t laid that path for a lot of comics. We’re talking 2014–15. I wasn’t doing anything with it, because it’s not like anybody was checking for a special from me. And then, during the writers’ strike, when I wasn’t at The Daily Show show every day and I didn’t have that many dates on the road, I was just going up as much as I could at the Cellar and New York Comedy Club. And I started to lean into topical, which I had never done before.
When I started, all of my real heroes in stand-up were timeless, so I very much wanted to be timeless. I felt like being topical and current was the antithesis of that. But when I realized that I was writing really fast, and I was getting bored with my own ideas very quickly, I was like, What if I gave this topical thing a shot? I wanted to start posting more, and I wanted to start sharing what I’d been creating. I had these notebooks full of jokes that were going to go nowhere, and it was important to me to try to share that with people. And I couldn’t have imagined the journey that’s been taking me down. People have really taken me in in a way that’s hard to describe without making me want to tear up.
From a process standpoint, how do you approach writing this much and honing it to the point where it’s ready to be released and watched in full?
I think a lot of it just has to do with what your genuine take on a subject is and if you have a real feeling and passion for what you’re talking about. You get more of an idea of what you want to say and jokes that flow from that. I also don’t go out. I sort of sit in my room and watch the news and read and write only. I think it would be harder if I had a life.
Sometimes, when you see a video, it’s my first time doing it. I just wrote it out as much as possible and did my best to memorize it, and I’m feeling out the rest of the connective tissue by the audience’s reaction as I go. And then, sometimes, I’ve been able to do it two or three times. I think the two ways to be different is to either have one of the more nuanced takes about the big thing everybody is talking about, or to talk about the thing that nobody is talking about. And you’ll see that with things I was just fascinated with, like the Alabama guy who was at the Bass Pro Shop. There’s little things where it’s like, This is a local story, but the video is insane, so I gotta talk about it.
In the set you did about Trump getting shot, you talk about how posting stand-up sets to your YouTube channel has changed your life. As someone who’s had a lot of more traditional mainstream opportunities — multiple late-night sets, hourlong specials on Comedy Central and Peacock, and a 15-minute special on Netflix — what is it about YouTube that feels different?
I think it’s connection and community. Anybody can get picked to do anything, and the person who picks you, one day, maybe they’re not there anymore. So then what’s your connection to the people? The goal is to be able to create with no middle man. If you can create, and there’s no one to tell you what to say or dial back, there’s no one in the way of your connection with the people who want to hear from you, and that’s real success.
My only boss now is the audience that I serve. They’re the ones who tell me if something was a good set or not. They’re the ones who tell me what they would like to hear from me. Obviously I still talk about what I’m going to talk about, but my only answer is to them. If you get tapped tomorrow to go somewhere for a company, and this company is going to give you access to its fan base, that’s all well and good. But even if you make those connections, how do you stay with them, and how do you hear their feedback? As back and forth, hot and cold, and brutal and sweet as comments can be, they are your direct link to feedback. What’s happening now is something that, even with more mainstream and commercial success, I could not have imagined, which is real and proper community with the people I create for.
What did it feel like to get your promotion at The Daily Show? What’s the learning curve been like for you?
The feeling of it was wild. I don’t think it felt real for a couple months, because I’ve really come to know this place is home, and everyone here is just phenomenal. Even if I were to try to go down the list right now, I would miss so many talented people.
Everybody was really supportive in a way that really touched me. The writers got me flowers and stuff, and for the rest of the week, it was just hugs and pats on the back from people who felt like I deserved a shot, and that means a lot to me. I love doing the show, and I still get to work with the same people. I think the only real difference is I used to write for Dulcé a lot, and I used to write for Roy a lot, and I wrote a lot of different pieces that I’m really proud of where we collaborated with a lot of the other producers and people who go out into the field. And that part has shifted where, now, I sort of only write for myself. So that’s been a learning experience of, like, what things are like when you have to say them. Because when it was me writing, I was just like, “Hey, listen, let’s try it. Let’s see if it works!” And now that it’s me having to say it to people, I’m even more thoughtful about how things sound, or how they’ll come off, or what the take is.
Has the show felt different at all since Jon Stewart came back?
I think that we’re in a beautiful place. I think that we’re doing one of the most historic election seasons that the country has had, and I think that we’re doing it with a team that’s been tested. Having to go through so many different guest hosts is a testament to the agility of everybody to work with different voices and to have a real sense of what the show wants to do and what the show has to do outside just one person. So now we have Jon back, and we have this amazing news team of people rotating that all have very distinct voices, and they all have really different comedic takes on sometimes the same topic. One of the ways to keep people engaged is to mix up both the delivery of takes and the takes themselves, and I think that keeps the show fresh and the people excited.
What’s it like in the writers’ room at the show on the day big political events occur, like Trump getting shot or Biden dropping out?
It mostly feels like an opportunity to speak to those larger things and express those ideas. The thing that I try to do with my channel, I do as best as I can at the show, which is like, Here’s my perspective on the thing. I don’t know how everyone’s gonna feel about it. I don’t know how incendiary of an idea this is, or if everyone’s on the same wavelength as me, but here’s where I’m at. And getting a sense of where everyone is at in a writers’ room is paramount to creating the best, most universal descriptions of what happened and takes that feel digestible.
So it’s more a feeling of excitement than chaos?
I think it feels more exciting, because I’m coming from the Trump years, where we would have a show ready, then Trump would do something at 3, and we’d be like, “We should probably include this.” So those things don’t rattle me at all. I think it’s more the sort of “unprecedented” events where you’re like, “What’s the best way to talk about this in a way that we’ll look back and be really excited that we took the opportunity?”
Do you think there’ll be an opportunity for you to get behind the host’s desk?
I would be open to it, but right now I’m just happy to be learning. I’m excited to be doing my chats and go out in the field; I’m excited for the DNC. I am just learning the differences between writing and being a correspondent, and the differences between performing for the studio audience and performing for the people at home, and how to get more and more comfortable out in the field. At every aspect of the job, I want to get better, so I’m just excited to do that right now.
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